Common sense, personnel safety and more recently Federal Regulations dictate that potential harmful equipment, devices and machinery that can cause personal injury, if not properly secured during maintenance or down times be equipped with appropriate lockable devices for securing such equipment during such periods. Substantial effort has been devoted to so-called "lockout" devices for electrical equipment that are applied during maintenance. Less effort, however, seems to have been directed toward properly securing equally potentially dangerous gas lines particularly those that supply two or more gases such as oxygen and a fuel gas as are used in welding, cutting, etc. operations.
The potential for leakage of such gases, especially in enclosed spaces where failure to properly secure gas feed lines in such a manner that gas leakage results, can produce a potentially explosive gas mixture in a very short period of time.